Verified in Shanghai.
Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) is a signature dish of China; we have verified places to eat it in Shanghai. Start with where to eat Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) in Shanghai.
Qingtuan are jade green rice balls stained with mugwort or wheatgrass juice, a springtime treat around Qingming Festival filled with sweet red bean paste or savoury salted egg yolk and pork floss.
Qingtuan descends from the Cold Food Festival, a custom more than two thousand years old in which fires were forbidden for a day and food was prepared in advance to eat cold. By the Southern Dynasties, records already describe rice flour mixed with wild herb juice, and by the Tang and Song dynasties a herb stained rice dish called qingjing fan was common. The dumpling closer to today's qingtuan is documented from the Ming and Qing dynasties, when herbal juice was worked into glutinous rice flour and shaped around a filling, and it became tied to the Jiangnan region's Qingming grave visiting customs each spring.
Where to eat in Shanghai:
Where to eat Qingtuan (mugwort rice dumplings) in Shanghai: the editor picks
4 hours
Immerse yourself in Chinese culture with a Kung Fu class and a soup dumpling workshop in Shanghai. Choose between Tai Chi or Wing Chun, then learn to make dumplings fr...
Day trip · 9 hours
Discover the beauty of Suzhou on a day trip from Shanghai. Visit the Humble Administrator's Garden, stroll through Shantang Street, and learn to make dumplings with a ...
Guided tour · 3 hours
Learn to cook two classic Chinese dishes in a cooking class in Shanghai. Visit a traditional wet market to select fresh ingredients and enjoy a hands-on cooking class ...
